Tag / Kansas City Kansas

“Noir fiction (or roman noir) is a literary genre closely related to hardboiled genre with a distinction that the protagonist is not a detective, but instead either a victim, a suspect, or a perpetrator. Other common characteristics include the self-destructive qualities of the protagonist.”

Kansas City is a big small-town metropolis, if that makes any sense. It’s located in the middle of the country, in the heartland, “fly over territory.” When people think of Kansas City, they think barbecue, farmland, the Royals, the American Royal, Midwestern values, Evangelical conservatism, you name it. In the grand scheme of things, for most people, Kansas City is the Midwest, and it fits neatly into what people think of the Midwest who live outside of it, be it the West Coast, the East Coast, the Pacific Northwest, wherever.

However, Kansas City is a city at the core of it, no different than a Chicago, a New York, a Los Angeles. It’s smaller in size sure, but like any big metro, there are stories. There are stories of people who make it, but there are stories of people who don’t. Stories of people who may want or have tried to fit into that “white picket fence” image of the Midwest, but ultimately fell short. They found themselves and their futures in the grime, the gutters, lost amidst bad decisions and bad relationships that pulled them away from that “Midwestern American Dream.”

No genre of fiction describes these stories better than noir fiction. Noir fiction is a close cousin to hardboiled fiction, but it’s darker, more bleak and offers less room for hope. Redemption exists in noir fiction, but the opposite proves more true than not. Hardboiled fiction deals with the anti-heroes who buck the odds despite their jagged qualities. Noir fiction is about the losers who fall in line because of their flaws.

But more importantly, noir fiction is about people. The common man, the temptations we face, and how those temptations can submerge them even despite their best intentions. It doesn’t matter who you are: a wino, a city politician, a police officer, a drug dealer, a private detective, a stripper, etc. Noir encompasses that walk of life, the night, the dark, the stories that either stay in the back pages or avoid the newspapers completely.

And that is where “Wyandotte Confidential” comes in. It’s a fiction blog. Serial stories will be produced here, with each post a chapter in a series that culminates in an online short story/novella. Wyandotte County is probably the most “noir” of any county in the KC Metro area: it’s small town meets big city, a clash of old and new that sees its winners stopped higher than they should, and it’s losers more redeemable than they are given credit for. Whether it’s in downtown KCK, the Argentine or Strawberry Hill, there’s a noir story worth telling. Of course, not every story will take place in Wyandotte County. There will be some stories that touch into the Missouri side as well as Johnson County and the Northland, but a majority will, and it only feels right that this blog, this collection, should pay homage to an area of Kansas City that constantly serves as inspiration to me both professionally as well as artistically.

So stay tuned to Wyandotte Confidential…a place where stories on the “hush” are brought rightfully to light.